Course estimation is of benefit for air traffic controllers, or for operators of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Conventional course estimation methods simply involve the determination of a tangent to a measured track that an aircraft is known to have followed.
Such an approach is not robust to measurement error, or extrinsic factors such as wind variation. Measurement error can cause inaccuracies in course estimation, since a noisy measurement signal will exacerbate inaccuracies when differentiated as part of the calculation of a tangent. Furthermore, wind variation can cause the actual path followed by the aircraft to oscillate around the intended path, making the actual path less indicative of the eventual trajectory of the aircraft.
There is therefore a need in the art for a more robust method for estimating aircraft course.